Feb. 5, 2013
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ESPN commentator Dick Vitale. / Rob Kinnan, USA TODAY Sports

by Michael Hiestand, USA TODAY Sports

by Michael Hiestand, USA TODAY Sports

ESPN's Dick Vitale is a rarity: Despite being arguably the best-known broadcaster in men's college basketball, he has never worked NCAA tournament championship action.

But during the upcoming March Madness, Vitale will do just that as an ESPN game analyst during the NCAA Final Four - for its international TV feed.

"In the history of ESPN, he's one of our most-important personalities," ESPN executive vice president John Wildhack said of Vitale. "This is a reward and a thank you."

That overseas TV coverage, going to 156 countries, will include Vitale working with play-by-play announcer Brad Nessler on one semifinal game and the NCAA championship game. Jay Bilas, with Nessler, will be the game analyst on the other semifinal.

"I'm on cloud nine," Vitale told USA TODAY Sports on Tuesday. "It's the last chapter of my life, or my career. They just called me today (about the assignment) and it blew me away."

Vitale says NCAA tournament coverage, through various studio shows, kept him going on TV. When ESPN began doing peripheral coverage of the tournament in 1983 -- as the NCAA controlled the game announcing -- Vitale says being involved was a life-changer.

"I was thinking of going back to coaching college -- I really wanted to go back," Vitale says.

But when he says ESPN executives told him "you hit a nerve" with viewers, Vitale figured he would stay with this TV gig for the long run.

"I'd love to be smooth like (ESPN anchor) Bob Ley, but that's not me," Vitale says.

Gooaaallll!!!! Gus Johnson, the Fox announcer famous for flamboyant game calls on basketball and football, will try something new next Wednesday -- calling world-class soccer on a Manchester United-Real Madrid game.

Johnson, in the first assignment for the Fox Soccer channel that will include various European championships, doesn't pretend to be a soccer expert. He has prepped with radio calls of the MLS San Jose Earthquakes.

But he says when Fox Sports co-president Eric Shanks first approached him about calling soccer, "I thought, 'What is this guy going to get me into?' That was my reaction."

Says Shanks: "With Gus, this wasn't a grand plan from the beginning and it was kind of off-the-cuff. It's a tough assignment, but he pours himself in his work. It took a while and took some coercing. But he's a unique sports voice and there's a first time for everything."

Fox begins covering soccer's World Cup starting with the women's tournament in 2015. So while Johnson told USA TODAY Sports he wants to "tap into the passion of the world's game and understand why it's almost more than a religious experience for some of these fans," he's also realistic about whether he'll call those Cup games.

"I might hit Lotto and not have to work again," Johnson says.

Whul show: Actor Robert Wuhl on Wednesday debuts a weekly Off the Wuhl fantasy baseball sports radio show on Sirius XM Radio (9 p.m. ET). Wuhl, who has been playing fantasy sports since 1988, told USA TODAY Sports, "I understand the passion and pragmatism and killer instinct" of fantasy leagues -- "and how it gives fans a better appreciation of baseball and a skewed appreciation of baseball." And now, he says, "Everybody thinks they can be a general manager." Well, maybe they could.

Spice rack: In the second year of live-streaming Super Bowl TV coverage, the Baltimore Ravens' victory vs. the San Francisco 49ers attracted 3 million unique users -- up 43% from last year's New York Giants' victory vs. the New England Patriots. And the digital coverage, available on cbssports.com and nfl.com, generated nearly 10 million live video streams -- up 100% from last year. To keep things in perspective, CBS' coverage of Super Bowl XLVII attracted 108.4 million viewers. ... NBC will begin coverage for the Sochi 2014 Winter Olympics a day earlier than the traditional start date. Rather than going prime time next Feb. 6 with the Game's opening ceremonies, NBC will start with events underway the previous day, such as women's freestyle moguls and women's slopestyle moguls. NBC, which Wednesday begins running on-air promotions for the Games, will live-stream all events, as it did at the 2012 London Olympics.